


The Zygon Illusion

by GalaxyOwl13



Series: Moments and Memories [4]
Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (1963), Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Crossing Timelines, Gen, Historical Inaccuracy, I Can't Believe I Wrote This, I think my info on the Aztecs is correct, Nardole is the Responsible One, One Shot, POV Twelfth Doctor, Paranoia, Prompt Fic, Serial: s006 The Aztecs, Sickfic, Sort Of, St. Luke's University (Doctor Who), The Vault (Doctor Who), Timey-Wimey, University, Why Did I Write This?, Wordcount: 1.000-3.000, Wordcount: 1.000-5.000, can't promise anything though, not the main focus anyway, why is that not a tag
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-04
Updated: 2020-09-04
Packaged: 2021-03-06 17:14:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,034
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26292457
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GalaxyOwl13/pseuds/GalaxyOwl13
Summary: The Doctor gets sick, gives a lecture on the Aztecs, and argues with Nardole. A lot.Oh, and he meets Barbara Wright a decade too early. Or a couple thousand years too late, depending on your perspective.
Relationships: Twelfth Doctor & Barbara Wright, Twelfth Doctor & Nardole
Series: Moments and Memories [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1906012
Comments: 2
Kudos: 12





	The Zygon Illusion

**Author's Note:**

> Written for National College Colors Day – Write about a university/college, alien or otherwise in National Whatever Day - September Edition. This was supposed to be funny. I'm not sure what it turned out as, but I apologize in advance. Also, I wrote this very quickly and was very tired, so I'm sorry for any errors and stuff that doesn't make sense.

The Doctor was officially fed up. He was perfectly fine, and he had a very important lecture to get to. But the egg-head—sorry, Nardole, Missy was beginning to get to him—was refusing to leave him alone.

“Sir,” Nardole said for the millionth time. Actually, it was the sixty-third time, but who was counting? (The Doctor was.) “Sir, are you absolutely certain you’re alright?”

“I’m fine,” he said, waving an arm in Nardole’s general direction. “I have a class to teach, so would you…” He attempted to think of a polite was to say what he meant, but was at a loss. Oh well, he’d tried. “Shoo.”

“You can’t tell me to shoo,” Nardole protested. At least he wasn’t inquiring after the Doctor’s health anymore.

“I just did,” he said, grabbing his lesson plans. They were mostly equations for whatever he had been trying to calculate at the time—either the exact position of Saturn or the predicted price of eggs in 1989 by the look of them. His current plan was to completely ignore his lesson plans.

“Sir,” Nardole began again.

“Nardole,” the Doctor turned around to face him.

“Sir, are you certain that Time Lords can’t get the flu?”

“Can Time Lords—can Time Lords—” the Doctor stuttered. “Time Lords absolutely cannot get the flu.”

“You’re in no position to be teaching a class when you’re sick.”

“I’m not sick,” the Doctor said in a manner that he believed made him sound completely reasonable. Anyone listening, however, would consider it ‘petulant’.

“You should rest,” Nardole said. “If you’re sick, You-Know-Who will know. She’ll see it as a weakness and strike.”

The Doctor, not currently having a reply for this, decided not to grace his statement with one. It was obviously ridiculous, because it was silly, and it was silly because Missy wasn’t trying to escape. Right? Right?

Okay, maybe he was ill. It wasn’t going to stop him from teaching, though. He turned on his heel and walked out of a room that could only be described as ‘calmly’ by a blind and deaf Brontosaurus. Maybe he should do a lecture on Brontosauruses and their tiny brains at some point.

* * *

The lecture hall was full of eager college students, ready for another one of his lectures. He noticed more faces than usual in the crowd, so either the place was being infiltrated by aliens or he was going crazy. Based on his experiences, the first was more likely, since everyone knew he was already crazy.

He should probably tell Nardole and retreat to the Vault, decided the Doctor. Unless…unless, that was just what they were expecting! By now, he felt dizzy. This was obviously the alien intruders! If they were perfectly willing to make themselves known, they must want him to retreat, and he refused to play right into their hands.

There was no question about it. He simply had to keep lecturing. Nardole could protect Missy—well, Missy could protect herself. Nardole would protect the aliens by keeping them away from Missy.

“Hello, class,” he said, picking up a piece of chalk and feeling the familiar weight in his hand. Vaguely, he wondered if chalk could be used as a weapon. Perhaps these alien spies would be particularly vulnerable to calcium carbonate. The class was staring at him, he realized. He had to say something, or else the aliens would realize he was onto them!

His mouth felt dry, and he felt like he was going to fall down any moment, but he knew that he had to continue teaching. For the good of the universe. “Today, I am going to teach about…” He made it seem like a dramatic pause, because he needed some time to think. What was he going to teach about? Calcium carbonate would be a good idea, except he couldn’t let the aliens realize he knew about their weakness.

As he looked around, he saw a face that looked vaguely familiar. Suddenly, he had an idea. “The Aztecs. Today, I have a lecture prepared for you about the Aztecs.” He began writing on the chalkboard, leaning against it to hold himself up. “The word Aztec means ‘people from Aztlan’. Aztlan—”

Slowly, the Doctor began pouring out information about the Aztecs. A few minutes into his lecture he realized that he could be perpetuating an alien stereotype of humans as savages, so he moved his lecture’s focus onto the aspects of their culture that weren’t about human sacrifice. Perhaps they would realize that although humanity had some bad practices, they also had some good ones as well.

Someone was raising their hand, and the Doctor was distinctly certain that he should know their name. “Er…” he said, trying to remember. Oh, yes, this must be Adric. “Adric?” No answer. So perhaps not. “Stephen? Mickey? Ian? Well? What’s your name?” He asked.

“James,” the boy said. “But didn’t Cortes have to conquer the Aztecs because they were doing human sacrifices?” A couple others nodded. Yes, he must be one of the aliens. He had been in the last class, though, because he was wearing that cool blue tie. Unless…unless the aliens stole it from him. Or worse, stole his face.

Zygons! Yes, that was it. And they must have poisoned him, which was why he felt so dizzy and why he was going to, going to—“Achoo!” He sneezed. “Right, yes. Aztecs. Cortes.” He looked back at the Zygon—he had already forgotten the name of the boy the creature was impersonating. “No, Cortez slaughtered—”

* * *

Thirty minutes later, the Doctor was certain that he was under psychic attack. He could hear voices all around him, voices talking, and he was slipping away…

“Professor!” Someone was shaking him. Someone was touching his shoulder and the Nardole knew that the Doctor hated when anyone did that, so it must be the aliens. Zygons.

“The Zygons! We’re under psychic attack!” He exclaimed, his eyes going wide open.

The Doctor was…in the lecture hall. And everyone was staring at him, like he had just passed out at his desk. Which he…possibly had, by the look of things.

“Are you alright, professor?” That was Ace, surely. No one else called him Professor. Good thing, too, because he had a feeling he was going to need some of that Nitro-9 she was almost certainly ‘not carrying’. He turned around to look at her. She looked familiar, but nothing like Ace, because she didn’t have that awesome jacket with the badges. “Professor?” Right, he was actually a professor now. And he had a class to teach, so that the alien spies didn’t catch onto him.

“Yes, I’m fine,” he grumbled, standing up and plucking the chalk off his desk. “Cortes’s forces were greeted by the current Aztec leader, Moctezuma II…”

* * *

By the end of the lecture, the Doctor’s head was spinning, and he was coughing every other sentence. When he closed the door behind the last student, he collapsed at his desk, eyes heavy.

“Sir?” Nardole asked, shutting the door quietly behind him.

“Nardole,” the Doctor acknowledged miserably.

“I take it you realized that you cannot teach while you have Time Lord flu?”

“Time Lords can’t get the flu!” The Doctor insisted, standing up only to fall into the desk, catching himself just in time. This was, of course, due to the Zygons’ psychic weaponry. Although last time he checked, they didn’t have psychic weaponry at all. Perhaps they were in league with the Time Lords? Yes, that must be it. “This isn’t the flu.”

“So, you admit there is a ‘this’,” Nardole said.

“I’m not sick!” The Doctor insisted. “I can’t be.” Obviously.

“Because you’re invincible?” Nardole asked. “You’re not. A baby Adipose could kick your arse in your current state.”

“There is no ‘current state’,” protested the Doctor. “I’m perfectly fine.”

“ _This_ ,” Nardole said in disbelief, “is _fine_? You can’t even stand up properly.”

“Nardole,” the Doctor said quietly. “There’s currently an alien invasion underway. This can wait for later.”

“An alien invasion?” Nardole asked loudly. “Where?”

He was an idiot, the Doctor thought, broadcasting to the world that they were aware of the Zygons’ sinister plans. “Shut up, shut up shut up! They can’t know I’m onto them, or else they’ll succeed in stealing the Vault.”

“You need to rest,” Nardole said, completely ignoring the incredibly important and pressing threat. “And there’s no alien invasion.”

“Zygons,” the Doctor said. “In my class. All those extra faces. They thought I couldn’t notice, but I did.” And he would stop them from trying to hurt—from trying to steal the Vault. Because Earth was protected! Right? Who was doing the protecting? Oh, right. Him. Well, maybe not anymore. But he would stop them anyway.

“Today’s when prospective students visit the college,” Nardole said, crossing his arms. “Now you’re not grading any papers until you take a nap.”

“Time Lords don’t take naps. And I am perfectly capable of telling when someone is after the Vault, thank you.”

“Well,” Nardole said, “supposing there are Zygons after the Vault, you’re no use protecting it right now. You need some rest.”

“I am perfectly capable of protecting the vault!” The Doctor said.

“Oh, I see, this is about the Vault. You don’t want to accept that you can’t be constantly guarding it.”

“I…” Nardole was wrong. Completely utterly wrong. Because he was wrong. And don’t say that it wasn’t logical, because this was the most logical thing the Doctor had come up with in the past decade. “I…” He was saved from having to answer by a cautious knock on the door.

“Come in!” The Doctor said gratefully. Nardole shot him a look, but that didn’t matter when there was a Zygon plot to foil!

“Hello,” a young woman said, entering the room. She seemed familiar, but the Doctor wasn’t sure where from. “I’m Barbara Wright. I sat in on your lecture today?”

One of the Zygons, then. Except the Doctor knew a Barbara Wright, didn’t he? All those years ago…

Oh.

Right.

This was a problem, then. And there might, just might, not be a Zygon invasion. Perhaps Nardole had been right. Which was ridiculous, of course, because since when was Nardole right?

“I’m…” The Doctor said, because he couldn’t give out his actual name whether she was a Zygon or not.

“He’s Doctor John Smith,” Nardole said.

“And this is egg-man.” Nardole glared at him. “Sorry, Nardole. Yes, Nardole. I think, your name’s Nardole, right?”

Nardole rolled his eyes. “I’m his valet, and this idiot insists on teaching his lectures while passing out.” This was utterly ridiculous! The Doctor had briefly succumbed to the Zygon psychic attack, true, but he had recovered. He was in tip top shape. All systems go!

“Oh,” Barbara said. “Well, I was just wondering if you were alright, you see. Some of the others were worried.”

“I’m fine,” the Doctor said shortly.

“And…do you have any recommendations, for someone who wants to learn more about the Aztecs?” She asked. “Your lecture was fascinating.”

“Ah, yes.” His mouth was dry again, but he grabbed a sheet of notepaper and a pen to write down several titles. He pointed to one of them and smiled, then coughed, then smiled again. “Try this one, if you can find it. I know someone who said it was her favorite history book.” Educating Zygons about human history might encourage them to accept humans as people. And besides, he could never resist a timey-wimey paradox. Did he say that anymore? He wasn’t certain.

“Thank you,” Barbara said. “Do you like teaching? When you’re not sick.”

“I’m not sick,” the Doctor said, then realized he was probably being too standoffish. “But yes. Are you considering it?”

“Yes,” Barbara said. “For history. I’ve always wanted to help others learn.”

“I think you’d be an amazing teacher,” the Doctor said.

“You know,” Barbara told him as she left, “you should listen to Nardole. Passing out isn’t what I would call fine.” She closed the door behind her.

“Now,” Nardole said, in a tone that brooked no argument. “You’re going to stop being paranoid over a Zygon invasion, and take a nice, long rest.”


End file.
